


Tales from Space and Beyond

by TheTwistingBunny



Category: Homestuck
Genre: LOTS of violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTwistingBunny/pseuds/TheTwistingBunny
Summary: A snapshot in time, of terrible things.





	1. Killing the Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's a collection of my Homestuck related works!]

“I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU!” 

The words rang out like a cannon’s discharge, screamed above the roaring night winds. The puce colored leaves whipped violently in the gusts, sending down a rain of sticks and seeds on the pitch colored ground below. A Bronze blood stood there, biting back a reflexive sniff as he dragged his leather gauntlet under his nose to wipe away what was undoubtedly a mixture of snot and viscera. Umber tears bit at the corners of his eyes as he clutched the hilt of his lance tighter. Hard enough to make the sinews of his claws ache in protest. But still he was standing, standing ankle deep in the gore of his men. Good trolls everyone, rebels ‘til the end. Rebels they would be in the hereafter, whatever awaited them. A Rebel he would be, no matter what happened.  
The Crimson ringed eyes of the Dragon stared back at him, swathed in a sea of darkness. Crowned by curling, twirling horns, its claws dyed in a rainbow of hues.

Saliva dripped from between fangs the length of his index finger. It was more blood than spit at this point, a rich purple color. Worthy perhaps of the title of royalty, its color was so stark, so vibrant on the background of polychrome splatters. They were alone. Alone in the world, alone in every possible sense. Two beings intertwined perfectly in fates neither could ever hope to understand. Their history written long before they were ever hatched. Eons ago for one, only ten sweeps for the other. Now, they stared at each other from across a sea of blood. Wisps of heat still wafted off of the corpses, the scattered remains of their soldiers. Some fried by fire, others blasted apart by psychic might, until the grinning horde of painted faces was no more. The party of frightened lowbloods clutching their sharpened farm tools and old military gear met a similar fate. But they all looked the same now, hues mixing together into an unrecognizable mire of black beneath his feet.

The Dragon regarded him, in silence.

“Not…afraid?” Its lips never moved but he could hear it, delving into the deepest recesses of his mind. Whispering into his thinkpan, as though it were right there. Uttering into his very auricular clots, that hideous whispering voice he knew so well. Few did, few would ever hear it and live. But he was determined, blinking exhaustion out of his bronze-shot eyes.   
“I- never wanted you to be afraid of me.”  
This monster, this foul apparition. Stood head and shoulders above every troll he had ever known. Clad in plated armor that betrayed the senses into thinking it would be /slow/ when it swung. The truncheon in its claws, covered in the thick congealed sludge of friend and foe alike. Spikes jutting haphazardly out of the worn metal, it was a featureless weapon. There were thousands like it, millions even. To the common observer, there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. But in its grasp? The weapon had an identity, as an extension of its master’s will.

Those ruby faceted orbs, holding a cruel look of betrayal, burrowed deep into his molested mind. Deeper than even its voice could go. Somewhere beyond the pan, down his very sensory fibers, through the marrow and chitin of his inner support stalks. Right into his blood pusher, gouging it with all five claws in an iron-gloved grip.

“The time has passed for your Sentiments. Tonight, you will die and we-. We will go Free.”

What we was there now? His pan griped with bitter cynicism, looking at the sludge one more time before he sets his shoulders and starts moving. One foot in front of the other, starting off as a brisk walk that became a sprint towards the target. Seeing the wide blown pupils of purple suddenly narrow into pinpricks as the Dragon charged him down as well. A grisly, hoarse roar managing to emerge from unused vocal cords as grass and rocks passed by in a flash. Ten meters, six meters, four meters-!

They clash, lance meets armor, gouging the plates deep but glancing off, up the chest rather than straight through the blood pusher as intended. Into a lung, he knew what the blow had done before he saw that mass of metal and thorns come down on him, failing to jerk back in time. To disengage from the enemy, to free himself from the crushing force-.  
He felt his horn snap first, a bloom of agony so unspeakable he couldn’t even scream when it fell upon his shoulder, the jagged spikes doing their job of shredding the light leather armor he had bedecked himself in. It wasn’t meant to protect against more than a few careless arrows, it was supple but carefully weighed so he could still fly.

It was strange, his instinct was to press in closer, driving that lance deeper into the beast’s chest as he felt his fragile, hollow support stalks give way, crushed to dust under the ensuing force. Funny, how he could feel if just for a moment, the hyper-extension of his shoulder. Before skin was pierced, ligaments tore and muscle was firmly ripped. Followed by a distinct lightness on his left side, sending impulses to a limb that was no longer there. But now lay in the dust at their feet. A shower of purple blood came down on his face, mouth agape in a silent wail, only for that poisoned ichor to lay a metallic taste on his tongue. Run down his head, between his brows, drooling icily off his chin. Mixing with the bright tawny hue pouring out of the destroyed socket that had once been his shoulder.

He didn’t blink, hand shaking as his grip slipped off of his lance, falling to his knees with the towering Dragon to follow shortly after. Ragged, choking breaths struggling to come through when it fell. Plummeting to ground from its lofty heights with a mind boggling CLANG. Pushing the lance deeper as it lay face down on the grass. Still, but not dead. The bronze blood was shivering, vision going dark at the edges as he rocked back and forth ever so slightly on his knees. Occasionally making out the fallen limb and chunk of horn laying just out of reach. Some foolish, panicked part of him told him to get up, to take the severed pieces of himself and reattach them. With thread, or a hot iron, whatever it took.

But it didn’t take a mentally sound troll to know when a joint was destroyed beyond all recognition, when a limb was broken calcium in a jelly sack. The low blood, feller of the steel juggernaut, slayer of regals, struggles to his feet. Succeeding in only half way rising before he was reduced to a faltering crawl. Not minding the bits of metal and marrow shards that coated his remaining hand and his knees. He had to look at it, he had to gaze upon the Dragon’s face one more time. If only to steel his dying resolve, to know that he did the right thing. To KNOW that he had been victorious, it was this thought that made him collapse beside the tyrant. The broken stump of his horn allowing him to at last lay his head parallel to the dirt. The grass was drier on this side, but he could already see the trickle of purple, threatening to flood this pure, sweet smelling grass with its odious presence. 

What he hadn’t expected, was for the Dragon to look at him again. Struggling to lift its mighty head once again, turning just so to fix- not carmine, not scarlet, but /purple/ eyes on him. The paint it adorned itself with was smeared on the ground, exposing traces of gray skin beneath.   
Somewhere in the distance, his auroch like ears perked lopsidedly, a bell was tolling. A slow, doleful sound that foretold Dawn was coming. The Sun would rise, and dry the grisly spectacle of glory surrounding them. Like two pairs of tawny and purple wings, flung out far from their bodies. In a circle of dried grass, moated on all sides by fallen comrades and their own blood.

Funnily enough, he already had his wings. What little good they did him in the end.

The low blood trembles, the high blood wheezes but otherwise. No sound comes from either of them, what good would it do them to speak? With time growing so short?

As always, the Dragon saw fit to speak first, in a telekinetic voice far more subdued than it had in many sweeps.  
“I’m Sorry.” It whispered, growing faint at the edges as it sluggishly lifted one brutal paw. Coming back down with another fierce metallic rattle just inches away from its opponent. “I did not want to hurt you.”  
Those words, struck mortal fear into his soul. Forcing himself to look away, willing himself to die faster. Anything to free himself from what was undoubtedly coming.

“Please, say something. I can feel your life force, waning, but still there.”

What could he say? A hearty congratulations, a scornful remark, did it even matter in the end? His eyes screw shut, knitting his bloodied brow, begging his flagging heart to beat harder and pump out what little life he had left. But the sound of metal grating against metal reached his ears, and finally, translucent orange tears fell from the corners of his closed eyes. He felt icy claws, slowly twine with his own. A clumsy, crushing grasp, the one hand he had left, no longer fixed around his lance but in the claws of this Tyrant.  
“I…hate you.” He finally chokes, he refuses to look back, though it places considerable strain on his neck to force his head to stay turned away from them. He wouldn’t live to deal with the ensuing ache, but more importantly how could he?

There was silence, the grasp on him tightened, pain blooming as hairline fractures ran through his fragile support stalks.

How could he bring himself to look back at It’s- no…His face. The face of the one troll who was as the twin moons in the heavens. Battered, broken and gaunt from war, from pain, leaving dark rings around them and terrible stains on his hands. Whose very blood rained down on him like the holiest of cleansing ablutions. The Troll who once had dragged his ruinous claws across a low blood’s forehead, smearing him with ash and grease paint. Blessing him before the entire posse, pronouncing him loyal, sacred and /beloathed/. 

When they had stood together over the deepest ridges of darkness, peering into unfathomable chasms, knowing what horrors awaited them and yet pressed on. In the name of a joint crusade, of a greater purpose, it was only through this that he could even understand the drawling tongue of his enemy. So long they had been together under the twin moons, gorged on each other’s good will and glutted on company. Feeling satisfied even when there was nothing to slake their physical hunger, they had been comrades in every sense. But now? It was ruined, all ruined. Time had come and changed those happy nights, driving them further and further apart until even the mightiest bond was broken. They flew from each other, vowing to destroy their other half should they ever meet again.

It was charming in a sense, to know that one would not have to live without the other. But the voice came again, pliant, weak, only barely dipping into the edges of his thinkpan now.

“It will be done soon, but- I have forgiven you. Won’t you do the same?”  
A sob that came out more as a dying gasp left the low blood, he was older now. Scarred and broken, but there were injuries from long before this, wounds while not visible, still remained.

“No.” He finally whispers back, voice barely a hoarse croak, when before it had been a strong enough scream to inspire his army into this foolish duel. All lives lost, every able bodied troll destroyed. There was no one left but the sick and dying back at their camp. Nature would see to them, or hunger, or the very afflictions that spared them this horror to begin with.

“As foolish…as it may be- I will wait for you outside the Gates of Shangri-lol, and I will wait until-…until you are in my arms once more.”

The low blood wished to give a scathing retort, to lambaste the troll beside him. To tell him there was no place for a Rebel in the upper echelons of Paradise. That he would fade away into the Dark Carnival’s fathomless expanse and the high blood would be kept waiting for spans eternal. For something that would simply never arrive. But the words died in his throat, as finally the cold took over. Body numbing against the ground, to where not even the blistering bite of the wind could be felt.  
The Bell tolls grew quieter, distancing themselves from him, before they finally fell silent. A final breath drawn beneath the waving trees, as showers of falling leaves fell around them in a swirling ouroboros. The darkness was being banished slowly, turning magenta and crimson in place of the deepest blacks and blues that made the heavens. Spotted only by the tiniest pinpricks of light, unfathomable distances from where their observers lay. 

“The stars themselves seemed to dim when you were gone. But tonight, they glow once again.” 

The final words of a Tragicomic fool, to a husk whose hand grew icy in his palm. ‘Til even his own wet, gasping breath ceased, missing by mere minutes the glorious rise of the Sun, bathing everything in Light.


	2. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [More GamTav Shenanigans!]

He woke up under the colorful sprawl of tent fabric. Propped up on fluff prisms, on top of an old slime platform. Sitting up was difficult, the nasty metallic taste in the back of his protein chute made it hard to swallow. Running claws through his tangled mane, he still hadn't gotten used to sleeping like this. It was so quiet, no ocean beating against the coast. Or trolls tramping all around. It was early dusk from what he could tell of the thin sliver of light beneath the tent’s entrance. The outer covering was thick, allowing only miniscule amounts of it through. But he staggers to his talons anyway, checking the meter just to be sure. Before flinging the cover wide. Allowing the moonlight to wash over his hide. Enjoying the refreshing sensation of warmth radiating through the air.

He could almost like this, almost. There was a smell on the air. Of meat, it was Intoxicating. Like spices, and fat. Something he had not smelled since coming out here with that robed heretic and two faithful brothers stuck under his claws. So he moves, heading towards a fire burning in the center of the camp. 

The closer he gets, the better it smells. Filling him with energy, shaking out that lethargy as he settles into a lope until-. He finds the clearing and freezes. The heretic is nowhere to be found. Its only the tall one and Kurloz by the fire. They look pleased, now normally he ain’t the type to get antsy about cheerful brothers but something is off.   
There are stains on the sand around them. But he's beckoned closer by the tall one. The one who says he's the oldest of them all but he couldn't be a sweep or two older than Kurloz. He approaches slowly, the smell is going through every inch of him. Its great, messiahs damn is he hungry. But its no meat the likes Gamzee has ever seen on that fire. No meat he’d want to touch.

The empty gander sockets of a bull horned skull sit staring at him from a rock. Those stains looked black in the fire light. But they are orange and purple intermixed. Bones cracked open by heavy fangs. Marrowless, his stomach curls at the bubbling pot sat before him. A lonesome scarred hand poking out of it. Smells like fat...and spices. 

Kurloz offers him something and he bats it out of the trolls claws and breaks into a panicked run. There's no way- he repeats to himself.

The loose sand under his talons made him stumble for the hundredth time. Struggling to slog up the bank of another dune. How many had he skidded down, not paying attention to where he was going? He’d lost count to be perfectly honest. Though if he had tried to count at all was another question entirely. This place, this hellscape seemed to go on in infinite directions. There was no change, only rolling hills of empty sand and the horizon.

Where was he going?

Truth be told, that was another thing he didn’t know. Watching his talons connect with the sand. Feeling a lead weight sinking into his limbs as he fought to clamber up a particularly tall wave-.  
Wait, was it sand or water?  
He couldn’t tell. It was shifting from purple to crimson to orange and back again. It seemed to be moving. Rolling under him in swells until he tumbles again. Balance failing every time he got upright for more than half a second. The moons were falling out of the sky. In a slow, perfectly coordinated spiral. Spinning on their individual axises. But they never got any closer. In fact, they seemed to grow more and more distant the closer they came to the horizon. Being lost in a sea of melting olive and navy stars. Intermixed with flashes of...yellow and fuschia and violet. Dripping off the black sky’s canvas. Like the world was covered in a corroding dome and he was right beneath it. Being jostled by restless ground that was neither solid nor liquid. But it fell, fell from the heavens, in equally hot and icy drops. Painting his skin, his face, his hands. He swipes at the first few drops. Wiping them from his skin harshly, only to find that pale silvery gray dyed where those colorful speckles fell. It oozed down in thicker and thicker torrents until it drenched his mane, his clothes. Making the sand stick to him in horrible, coppery clumps. It was getting harder and harder to move as it poured from worlds unknown. Sliding down his limbs and back, completely soaking him down to his bones. Rooted to the spot, the sand or perhaps the ocean itself turning to a sticky sludge. More akin to mud. Blotting out the brilliant orange, red and purple it had been before. 

It started sliding down. Everything- the sky bows inwards as the mire begins to sink. Falling, a sinkhole, or perhaps a whirlpool. A dark abyss at the center of the world. Pulling him backward, unable to scream into its mass. Being pulled further and further in by a sensation stronger than gravity and exhaustion combined. Shaking breaths coming out in icy puffs as the black spot grew in size. Until it encompassed the world and he stood at the edge of it. The sludge pooled at his knees. Out of his peripheral vision, he swore he saw something soar by. But then it was gone, and he finally lost whatever solid ground he had been standing on. Tipping forward, horns over strutpods. In a graceless front flip, the rim of the basin where all this was plummeting flew over his head. Though he craned his neck to keep looking at it. As even that once immense hole became nothing more than a bright pin prick in the void until it vanished from his sight completely.

Falling, falling, falling. It seemed to stretch on forever. The numbing fear twisting in his guts turned to fury and then, apathy. He’d never stop falling. There was no bottom for his meathusk to splatter against and no infinite sprawl of tents and merry making even if there was. He’d seen this before. Empty glances of death, being unable to breathe, for one reason or another. Water, a simple lack of air, some motherfucker’s claws ‘round his windpipe. Its fearsome quality had died somewhere along the way and it wasn’t coming back. The further he fell, or perhaps, he was in exactly the same place and it simply seemed like he was falling. The more steadily he lost the feeling in his appendages. Starting at the tips of his claws, working across each digit and up until it hit his torso. The only sound was his pump biscuit, each beat faltering until it stopped altogether. He lost the feedback from his horns, and eventually everything else.

He wasn’t coming back.

That thought was reassuring enough to get him to close his eyes. Or at least he thinks he did, as it didn't particularly make a difference to the shade of black his peepstalks were gandering at. They could still be open for all he knew. But the silence was broken by a low whistling. Like wind whipping past him, filling up his head with its high pitched whine until it occupied all the space in his thinkpan with some ironclawed authority. So loud, it made his skull buzz in a hella unpleasant manner. He could feel the air rushing past him. Cutting through the ultra gummy coating clinging to him.

His eyes open.

The ocean, the actual ocean. All grape faygo dark and rolling. He was plummeting towards it. Having fallen from some unknown structure, from an unimaginable height-.  
He hits it, full on into a dive. Like that shit was second nature. Vestigial fins fanning out as salt water hits them. Filling up his nose and maw when he mistakenly tries to draw in a breath. But the underdeveloped gills he had hatched with were still insufficient. Neither a land dweller, nor a sea dweller. But instead something in between the two. But neither half was fully formed. 

Maybe this would kill him? 

The water was so cold, he couldn't move. Stuck in a frozen half-stroke. But it didn't last long enough to be considered fully. As something big welled up from the darkness and he lost consciousness shortly after spotting it.

When he woke up again, it was only part way. The vague sensation of waves nipping at his sides. First pulling him up, then pulling him back. But never quite fully doing either one. Quitting about halfway through. Like it couldn't decide what it wanted. The sensation was frustrating enough to have his bruised, scratched up palms batting at the sand as though trying to make sure it was actually solid this time. But he didn’t do much more than lift his head. Pushing his salt water soaked, tangled hair out of his eyes to take in the surroundings. Pure, good moonlight shone down on a familiar stretch of coast. The enclosed bay, with its jutting mountainous backdrop cradling a familiar sprawling hive he was certain had been lost to the Game and it's machinations. He’d never imagined being hivesick before. But laying ganderbulbs on it, in its place where it ought to be. Made his semi-aquatic vascular pump ache down in his thorax. Back before, he thought LOTAM was the most beautiful thing he’d ever see. But now? Looking up at his hive, his hive. Circled by rocks and old untended gardens he never took the time to look at. Dead, because it was the bright season. But still so familiar, the arching statues of lusii sat in defunct fountains out front. Those big, dusty windows you had to rub spots on just to see through the grime.

He imagined his horn pile, his nearly empty coon, tons of faygo bottles and other trash piled up in the vaulted halls and blocks he didn’t know the use of. It was enough to make him choke up a little. Trying to get his shaking claws under himself when-

“Who the shit is that?”  
A drawling little voice reached his ears. Making them perk as his swimming vision fought to stabilize and find the source of the noise. It wasn't going so well. His thinkpan felt fuzzy.

“uhh, Gamzee I- don’t think we should go over there. But, uh, that’s just my...opinion?”  
The second voice made his head jerk in their direction. Eyes focusing instantly on the troll who had spoken. A short little tawny blood, peeking around the side of a purple who had one arm flung out. As though his mere presence would defend the lowblood from harm.

“What’chu lookin’ at motherfucker? Got a problem?”   
His ears were extended all the way out, even the puny tines of malformed fins straining to make himself look bigger. Which by all accounts for a wriggler, he was. Although not widthwise, only heightwise. His companion had more bulk. Easily, a battered practice lance in his claws. 

“I don’t think they- have a problem.” The tawny blood butts in again. Taking a step around the purple but not getting any closer than that.  
“I uh, don’t mean to be rude. But I think they’re dying. Not even- uh. Sure they can see us? Not...not really I mean.”

“Motherfucker is lookin’ straight at you Tavbro. What’chu mean they can’t really see?”   
The purple wriggler’s hand hitches slightly but doesn’t summon anything from their strife specibus. Simply staying still, trying to remain imposing. Tangled hair, smudged paint, baggy clothes and all. Looking so young but ready to throw down at a moments notice.

Something in his thorax hurt again.  
“Let’s...just uh- go Gamzee. It's not really important I think it's just- a. Uh- well you know, one of those...things from an Orphaning vessel.”  
The tawny blood tugs gently at the purple wriggler’s arm and after a moment of narrowed eyed suspicion they relent. Slinging one arm around their pal and the duo take off back down the beach. Good moods restored, words he couldn't make out from the purple wriggler made the tawny laugh. Easing his mind and the wind carried sound back to his ears.

“Uh, you know- it kind of looked like you? But uh- older- and..n-not as good looking?”   
The wheezy, honking laughter that came from the purple wriggler drowned out anything else as they decided to play tag. Both parties sprinting off as quick as they could when the game began. 

It went dark again. He was starting to get sick of that. Some part of him wanted to stay. For some reason that felt like it was important. In a way he could not fully describe. But it felt so Important that it frustrated him enough to wake up again. To a different view this time. Inside of...his hive, this was definitely his hive. It had to be, odd posters, garbage, horns, he recognized all of it!

He could see those two again. From high above, for some reason. They were sitting close together in front of a huge holoscreen on a lounge plank. The purple was still gangly and awkward. The tawny still much broader. Although the purple maintained his lead of height considerably, taking the spot at the bend of the lounge plank. Sprawled out, with his companion leaned against his side. Arms looped around one another while whatever program they were watching danced by. Bathing this entertainment block in electric light and colors-!

A weird, non-white beast tramped across the screen...Pursued by three wrigglers. Tossing out beasts of their own. The tawny cheers when they defeat it, the purple just grins lazily. Eyes not quite focusing on the screen, nor his friend. But his gander bulbs go skyward and meet their observer. His needle fanged grin turning to a concerned frown as he quickly snaps his attention forward. Hugging the tawny blood a little closer, making him protest gently and pry the purple’s arm from around his thorax.   
A smile, and the fear is dismissed. 

The next thing he sees, is the purple. But they aren’t at his hive anymore. No, they stand in front of a much more modest one. Located on plainland, by a cliff actually. Again, it's familiar, but not in any meaningful way. Hes knocking on the door, insistently, worry written across his painted features. There’s no answer, so he pulls his palmhusk. Fingers skittering clumsily across it. Hitting send far more times than really necessary. Before knocking on the hive door again. 

When it opens, its the tawny blood. But not how he remembered them. Something had happened, they were confined to a two wheeled device. Awkwardly managing a smile to their friend who crouched down quite a ways to be eye level.   
They were still friends. The purple insisted, he’d come Here from now on, if it was easier. Since-.

It was gone again, like so many fleeting dreams. Only smaller, grainier clips came now. Tinged on the edges with black and toxic green. Falling face first down some stairs, being scared by a horn, looking for something in the ocean. But it wasn’t there? It was SUPPOSED to be there. But it wasn't. Looking at a divot in the sand where something had died. Staring at the stars, wondering why they were going so faint. Until pain, burns on the skin. From the sun. Collapsing into a trash pile. Being so tired. Getting a palmhusk wet in the ablution chamber. Meeting some gray text. Spending more and more time at the husktop, typing away. But never going back to the hive on the plainland. Lots of unexplainable cuts and bruises. Every so often a snapshot of something, edged into view. With it, fear, mortal terror, powerful enough to make claws dip deeper into green slime to numb it out until it all goes black.

But then, a game, spending a lot of time with the gray text. Turns out to be a nubby horned troll who almost fills the void. They get even more sporadic. A...monster? Something unwinnable, can’t win, can’t sleep, but the tawny can walk again but things are different now. They aren’t close, not quite how they used to be. But then. Red text and everything goes static, snapping back into crystal clarity as a navy blood gleefully kneels before death.  
He can feel the vibrations, of clubs connecting with something solid. Over and over again, until it's mush.   
Mock trials, smiling heads, destiny revealed as painted lips meet dead pale ones. Not minding the drips of orange on his fingers. Its good, almost everything he ever wanted.   
It all goes by in flashes, a freezer, something in his head, nubs was looking for him. But when? Was he still looking? White eyed trolls, flinching and whispers. Some sort of pink alien. Loneliness, stalking the winding steel halls. Just wanting to go hive. Hes so tired, wanting to sleep. But this poisonous urge, flashes of pain. Teal, feeling alright for a while but its not what he wants and it turns sour. Alone again, was any of it real?

He woke up in a slimy vat, to no light and a sea dweller he almost recognized.

Leave me alone.  
He had said.  
That’s understandable.  
He turned and ran away, far away from the tawny blood. Bolted like the moons would never rise. He could still see Tavros’s face. Living, breathing, hurt and he ran. Because he was the source of it. It all came back.  
Eyes open to the looming sprawls of color above.

There's a metallic taste in his mouth. Touching claws to his lips. His claws come away orange.


	3. Imbibe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [TW Emetophilia.]

He wasn't sure about this.

Truthfully, Tavros wasn't sure of most things in his life anymore. But he definitely wasn't certain of what was being held up to his mouth right now. Or the cold, wet breath that was ghosting across his skin. Leaving an icy condensation. Like frost on a window during the dark cycle. 

“Take a drink.” He was urged again, by a growl that was almost familiar. This was the third time, it was impatient. The haggard rasp of its breathing betraying as much. But his eyes were frozen on the vessel. The murky mixture of blood made his stomach twist.

“I’d-- I’d really uh- rather not because, it doesn’t uh, seem all that sanitary and its uh- gross?” He blurts out, feebly pressing backward into the bulk of his harasser. Ears drooping down when it was brought closer, having the audacity to turn up his snout at it. Screwing his eyes shut to push away the prospect. Though he wasn't going anywhere, and sadly, neither was the vessel.

“Drink, or a motherfucker is gonna fill a reliquary and drown your bitch-ass in it.”  
Tavros makes a noise, his claws biting into his palms. But he can't subdue the full body shudder. Which turns into a deep cringe when a frigid tongue runs up the tendon of his neck. Reminding him of just where he was, what his life had come to in just a few perigees before his ascension. Snatched from his hive, brought here, made to do this. He can feel tears pricking at the corner of his eyes as he focuses on the ornate ceiling above him. All of Alternia’s major constellations laid out across it.

Something so innocent up there, made it more bearable. His claws come up and meet that cold hand, bringing the vessel closer and he hears the beginning of an exhale as he brings it to his lips. Forcing himself to stop breathing as he opens his maw and pours the substance in. Iron, thick, metallic, utter vileness drained out and now he was forced to drink it. Gulping it down in rapid, haphazard swallows that ended up causing rivulets to run down the corners of his maw. Onto his clothing, staining it, tainting it with its presence. It's like he was trying to drink the ocean, gagging intermittently between overhearing praise and encouragement from the troll holding him here. Keeping a steady prong on that glass to make sure Tavros couldn’t get away from it. 

A strong gag makes him choke, coughing and making the stuff dribble out of his mouth and nose. Tears mixing with the substance, his own mucus and soon bile as he clutches his stomach. Covering his maw and struggling to swallow it all back down. He knew better than to throw it up. He’d have to drink it all over again. It was a game, a sick, perverse activity. He knew better. But he was struggling, each time he swallowed it seemed to come up in greater quantities. The pressure was off at least, he wasn't being made to drink more just yet as he heaved against the weakening resilience of his lips. Trying desperately to prevent it from coming straight out of his nose or through his fingers. 

He makes a disgustingly pitiful noise, he knows it sounds helpless. Weak, but that's what he was. There was no other way to put it to spare his feelings. He was weak and that is why this was happening to him. But a saving grace appears in the form of a hand touching his, prying it away as he swallows down another mouthful of gore. It drags itself across his bloody, tear stained face. Cleaning him, partially, before it ends up wiped on his uniform and more tears flow down his cheeks but he can't make any sound besides soft hiccups. His shoulders were shaking and he wanted to go to ‘coon. But that hand seizes his chin and forces him to turn his head. It's an awkward angle thanks to his horns. The ache sets in almost immediately as he's forced to take in those accursed red eyes. Crimson as the imperial banners but nowhere near as noble and truly? Much more repugnant.

He was an object, a toy, mere amusement for this thing. That stole him from his lusus, from his...caste appropriately happy life and made him do this. Kneeling on a cold stone floor, uncomfortably close together, gazing at him with an unreadable expression that filled him with dread. Which only intensified when it grins at him.  
“So motherfuckin’ proud little fire-raiser. Look at what you up and done there. Swallowed down your life blood with minimal bullshit.” 

Tavros wishes he could see the ceiling again. Not a dark halo of a mane surrounding long, spiraling horns, fangs stained by rainbows, that wild, screaming beast of a paint scheme. He missed someone else looking at it. A simple geometric pattern, an upturned smile rather than a snarl. Cool, smooth hands rather than cold, calloused ones. A maw that dripped sopor and slam poetry rather than blood and scripture.   
But he was weak, and because he was weak he trembles under that gaze. 

There was an unknown pleasure in those eyes, a licentious quality that made him feel sick again. His eyes screw shut, he thinks of the constellations above him. Of distant and beautiful stars, untouchable...unreachable. But still there, ultimately giving off light. He wishes he knew what became of his friend--  
All of his thoughts stop abruptly when greasy, cold lips press to his. Thought becomes raw static, it's a taste of much older blood, of rot, of meat on his tongue and his stomach gives way.

He pukes. But isn't splattered by viscera and bile. Claws are rubbing at his throat, coaxing it up--. His eyes come open and are met with the unaffected, unblinking red. The eyes of a troll, who had through some disgusting impulse, swallowed what Tavros had gagged up into his maw when kissed. The sheer thought makes him gag again and, in it coming up he's held steady. He can feel the movement of musculature that captures his sudden expulsion and retains it, drinking it down with no trouble whatsoever. 

He exhausts himself, and his stomach this way. Slumping against the sturdy frame he was pressed to. Rubbing his watery eyes with his sleeves. Trying not to sob, or scream, or make any noise. Like silence would undo what just happened. All his progress, the minute praise vanished in an instant and he was left with an inscrutable look burning into him. Tavros was expecting a shove, to be cast down onto the floor and stomped on. To have his skull split and his horns sold to the hornswoggler. Anything besides an encouraging stroke of claws through his Mohawk and a low sigh. Still a hundred times more terrifying than his own most blood curdling war cry.

“I ain’t needed more of you in me. Locked together as we are.” His heart lurches, this again, those tinged eyes seeming so distant. Not seeing Tavros for Tavros but some other entity, some other troll from eons ago that he is inexplicably linked with. Together forever, and every death brought this troll back anew. He feels tears coming up again, but he closes them. Picturing the constellations above them again, struggling to ignore the writhing against his back. Or the slightly warmed vapour breezing across his face. But they spring open when he finds himself spoken too and not immediately being drowned in a pail full of messiahs knows what. Like he's seen other trolls die-.  
“But I am motherfucking touched, little fire-raiser. You are one unique iteration in this clusterfuck. Guess I can return the favor. In smaller doses since your being’s so motherfucking gimped you can’t even take in your own essences.”  
Fear courses through him as he watches this mad troll slice his own tongue open on his fangs and they meet once again. It's fresh blood now, the freshest, straight from its source. Mixing with twin hued saliva and Tavros finds himself inadvertently losing this act of defiance. Swallowing dregs of blood. It covers the taste of bile, of the preserved ancient blood. With its fainter taste of iron and a distinct saltiness. But his skin crawls when he finds himself held, the stained vessel clanging to the floor. He's almost dipped and he thanks whatever gods there are that it doesn't go further than that. 

He is Tavros, but he feels like he's losing his mind in this place. Losing everything that makes him who he is. He's being forced to become someone else. Choking back another sob he flings his arms around this troll’s shoulders. The animalistic rumble of approval this act gets tells him he did the right thing. Being brought closer as a result. It was a possessive clutch that had his bones creaking. His tongue is sliced open in an over enthusiastic nip and He's overtaken by grief and elation that he wasn't going to be killed. 

He didn't want to die. Part of him feared this oppressive promise of Forever and another part...longed for it. Lowbloods like himself lived for only a hop beasts breath. Gone in an instant in the scale of geologic and even cosmic time. But due to his blood, his sign, his horns, something so unfathomably ancient as this had stolen him. Berated him, and sought his company in equal measure. Afforded him accommodations and protection unprecedented to a troll of his hue. Even now, so desperate to have him that he offered his own blood in attempt to right some wrong?

He was weak. They were strong. It would be easier to play into the farce. To give in and say yes to Eternity. Though death’s agent leered and snarled at him. His fear was subdued. Were any of these thoughts his? Tavros couldn't be sure. But he found this monster’s eyes closed. While locked in their exchange. 

A brave tinge hits him, if only he had something to stab it with. To turn that heated chirr into agony.  
Perhaps at another time, in another ritual he could.


End file.
